Katelyn Tipton Science Methods Blog

  This week, I learned a lot about sea turtles. From the moment their eggs are laid, they are in harm's way. Only 1 in 1,000 sea turtles survives the journey from their eggs to adulthood. Luckily for them, there are some ways people can help them to survive, but humans also cause them harm in the form of pollution and running them over. I also learned about food chains in different biomes and how they can be impacted by various problems, such as algae blooms blocking the sunlight from reaching plants in the ocean. We also checked in on our fast plants, which are flowering, so we pollinated them. And we checked in on the caterpillars, which are now in their chrysalises.  I am able to relate some of this learning to my prior knowledge. I was aware that sea turtles are endangered species, but I didn't know how perilous their lives really are, which is why they are an endangered species. I also already knew that sea turtles are impacted by human activity, like pollution in the oce...

 This week in lab, we learned about habitats and ecosystems and how some places can be both. We also learned about how some animals interact with their environments, like how dolphins create mud walls to trap fish, leading them to try jumping out of the water and landing in the dolphins mouths. Then, we learned about food chains and how they are different than food webs. Food webs are like food chains, but show more than one chain of consumption.  I already knew most of the stuff that we learned. Although, I didn't know the difference between food chains and food webs, I thought they were the same thing. I also was a bit confused on the difference between habitats and ecosystems before this week, but now I understand the relationship between the two.  I could definitely apply my learning on food chains and food webs to my future teaching. I would like to do on lesson on the differences between them and have my students make their own chains and webs, maybe as posters show...

 This week, I learned what the 5E model is. The 5E model is a way of teaching science that involves 5 phases all starting with E: engage, explore, explain, expand/extend, and evaluate. These phases create a guideline for teachers to create science lessons are are effective for student conceptual learning. I am not able to connect this to my previous knowledge, as this is an entirely knew framework to me. I think it is really interesting and seems like it would be super effective to use in my future classroom. I think the framework is super clear and easy to understand, as each phase has a word associated with it and they each have a little description of what that phase entails. Here are my answers to the 5E worksheet. (the format is a bit messed up because it went from word to google docs) 5E worksheet

This week, I learned what fast plants are and how they grow. I learned that you can plant a seed and have it go through it's entire life cycle in 40 days, ending with new seeds to plant. I also learned about life cycles and how some of them are complete or incomplete metamorphosis, so they aren't all the same.  I am able to relate my learning to my previous knowledge, as I already when the life cycle stages of a caterpillar/butterfly. It was interesting to see it actually happen in the video we watched in class. I am also pretty familiar with the life cycle of most plants, like the fast plants, but getting to see it all sped up in very interesting, rather than just pictures of each stage - it's cool to see it transition from one stage to the next.  This week, we did 2 activities in class - creating life cycles out of play-dough and planting fast plants. I would love to be able to do both of these activities in my future classroom, as they were both fun activities that invol...